4 Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out, amang the farmers roun',
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
A cannie errand to a neebor town:

Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e,
Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown,
Or déposite her sair-won penny-fee,

To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

5 Wi' joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet,
And each for other's weelfare kindly spiers:
The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnoticed fleet;
Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears:
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points to view.

The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new:
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

6 Their masters' an' their mistresses' command, The younkers a' are warned to obey;

An' mind their labours wi' an eydent hand,
An' ne'er, though out o' sight, to jauk or play:
"An' O! be sure to fear the Lord alway!
An' mind your duty duly, morn an' night!
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray,
Implore His counsel and assisting might:
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!"

7 But, hark! a rap comes gently to the door;
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same,
Tells how a neebor lad cam' o'er the moor,
To do some errands, and convoy her hame.
The wily mother sees the conscious flame
Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek;
With heart-struck anxious care inquires his name,
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak:

Weel pleased the mother hears it's nae wild, worthless rake.

8 Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben,
A strappan youth; he tak's the mother's eye;
Blithe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en;
The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye:
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy,

2 Into the spence or parlour. Such is often the force of ben.

But, blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave:
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy

What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave;
Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave.

9 O happy love, where love like this is found!
O heartfelt raptures! bliss beyond compare!
I've paced much this weary mortal round,
And sage experience bids me this declare,
"If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
One cordial in this melancholy vale,

"Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair,

In other's arms breathe out the tender tale,

Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale."

10 Is there, in human form, that bears a heart,
A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,
Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?
Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling smooth!
Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exiled?
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,

Points to the parents fondling o'er their child?
Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild?

11 But now the supper crowns their simple board,
The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food:
The soupe their only hawkie does afford,
That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood:
The dame brings forth in complimental mood,
To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck fell,
An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid:
The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell,

How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.

12 The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They round the ingle form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride:
His bonnet reverently is laid aside,
His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,

He wales a portion with judicious care;

And "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air.

13 They chant their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim

Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name:
Or noble Elgin beets the heavenward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:

Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;
The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.

14 The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage
With Amalek's ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

15 Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in Heaven the second name,
Had not on Earth whereon to lay His head:
How His first followers and servants sped;
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the Sun a mighty angel stand;

[command,

And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's

16 Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing,"
That thus they all shall meet in future days:
There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,

In such society, yet still more dear;

While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.
17 Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method and of art,
When men display to congregations wide.
Devotion's every grace, except the heart!
The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
But haply, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul;
And in His book of life the inmates poor enroll.

18 Then homeward all take off their several way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
The parent pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flowery pride,
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little-ones provide;
But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.

19 From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
“An honest man's the noblest work of God:"
And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road,
The cottage leaves the palace far behind.
What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of Hell, in wickedness refined!

20 O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent!
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil

Be blest with health and peace and sweet content!
And, O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From Luxury's contagion, weak and vile!
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,

And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved Isle.

21 O Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide

That stream'd through Wallace's undaunted heart;
Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride,
Or nobly die, the second glorious part,
(The patriot's God peculiarly Thou art,
His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!)
O, never, never, Scotia's realm desert;
But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard,

In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!

8 The characters and incidents, which the poet here describes in so interesting a manner, are such as his father's cottage presented to his observation: they are such as may everywhere be found among the virtuous and intelligent peasantry of Scot land. "I recollect once he told me," says Professor Stewart, "when I was admiring a distant prospect in one of our morning walks, that the sight of so many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his mind, which none could understand who had not witnessed, like himself, the happiness and the worth which they contained." With such impressions as these upon his mind, he has succeeded in delineating a charm. ing picture of rural innocence and felicity. The incidents are well selected, the characters skilfully distinguished, and the whole composition is remarkable for the propriety and sensibility which it displays. -DR. IRVING.

TO THE OWL.

SAD bird of night, what sorrows call thee forth,
To vent thy plaints thus in the midnight hour?
Is it some blast that gathers in the North,
Threatening to nip the verdure of thy bower?

Is it, sad owl, that Autumn strips the shade,.
And leaves thee here, unshelter'd and forlorn?
Or fear that Winter will thy nest invade?
Or friendless melancholy bids thee mourn?

Shut out, lone bird, from all the feather'd train,
To tell thy sorrows to th' unheeding gloom;
No friend to pity when thou dost complain,
Grief all thy thought, and solitude thy home.

Sing on, sad mourner! I will bless thy strain,
And pleased in sorrow listen to thy song:
Sing on, sad mourner! to the night complain,
While the lone echo wafts thy notes along.

Is beauty less, when down the glowing cheek
Sad, piteous tears in native sorrows fall?
Less kind the heart when anguish bids it break?
Less happy he who lists to pity's call?

Ah no, sad owl! nor is thy voice less sweet,
That sadness tunes it, and that grief is there;
That Spring's gay notes, unskill'd, thou can't repeat;
That sorrow bids thee to the gloom repair.

Nor that the treble-songsters of the day

Are quite estranged, sad bird of night, from thee;
Nor that the thrush deserts the evening spray,
When darkness calls thee from thy reverie.

From some old tower, thy melancholy dome,
While the grey walls and desert solitudes.
Return each note, responsive to the gloom
Of ivied coverts and surrounding woods;

There hooting, I will list more pleased to thee
Than ever lover to the nightingale;
Or drooping wretch, oppress'd with misery,
Lending his car to some condoling tale.